The Hardest Pill To Swallow

I come from a military family. Every generation for well over 100 years has entered the military. I myself am a second generation Marine grunt. My father spent 2.5 years of his life in South Vietnam. He suffered tremendously from the horror of war. He was wounded 3 times and carries with him the mental scars from combat. I never met a man that I admired more than my father. Through the toughest of times he showed me so much about love and compassion. He protected me as a child and I always knew that I was safe in his presence.

Some time in 2005 I read a book about our financial system titled The Creature from Jekyll Island: A Second Look at the Federal Reserve. This book changed the nature of my life in very profound ways. The largest change to my philosophy on life came in relation to war and why it is fought. At that time I believed with all of my being that war was fought to carry out the best interests of our nation. When I found out who really benefited from war it was like a brick to the face. How could my family have suffered so much so that the 1% of the world could reap vast profits? How could I have offered my life to a country that would do this to the men and women that “served” ? To know that bankers were the real victors in war blew my mind. I knew I would be a Marine from the time I was 5 years old. Now I had to face the fact that I was indoctrinated into believing all that we did was for a noble cause. This for me was the hardest pill to swallow.

Over and over again we see the same lies and false justifications for wars.

I wasn’t indoctrinated by my father. My father had saw plenty of war, and somewhere on a rice paddy in Vietnam he once was laid bleeding from a 7.62 mm round that had ripped through his shoulder. At that point he understood that he wasn’t fighting for freedom. He was fighting to stay alive. Had that round hit 2 inches to his right I wouldn’t be here today.

58000 other Americans weren’t so fortunate in Vietnam. Who knows how many more were mentally scarred to the point that their lives were never the same, and how many lives that were never able to reach their full potential due to the scars of an unnecessary war. One of the final justifications for war in Vietnam was the Gulf of Tonkin incident. The government at that time claimed that naval vessels in the Gulf of Tonkin were fired on by North Vietnamese gun boats. The government would later admit that this incident never occurred. By the time the government told the truth about the Gulf of Tonkin it was too late. The damage had been done. McNamara and Lyndon B. Johnson would never be held accountable for the death and destruction they brought to the American fighting man or the Vietnamese civilians.

Later I did some research on POW’s in Vietnam. Through my own research I came to the conclusion that the Nixon administration knowingly left 600-1200 American Military personnel in Vietnam because it wasn’t politically expedient to negotiate for their release, and they chose to focus on minimizing the damages from the Watergate scandal. I know this likely sounds conspiratorial to some, but this is the conclusion I came to after examining the facts that I was able to collect. So now not only did we send our men to this unnecessary war, but to add insult to injury we knowingly left some of our people behind. The Marine grunt in me was horrified, outraged, and I never again looked at our government the same. We grunts don’t like the idea of leaving our brothers anywhere. I believed in the tattoo that covered my fathers arm that read “Death Before Dishonor”.

Instead of being honest we create flags as a way to ease our conscious. The truth is that the POW’s were forgotten by the country that sent them there to fight.

I once considered myself a patriot. Now I was so disgusted with my country I wanted to see the men responsible for this drug into the street and executed. I was filled with rage. People had made significant profits off of the backs of the American fighting man. They sent our people to war and then left them when it became a politically expedient move to avoid further controversies.

As I read more and more information it became apparent to me that the two party political system was another sham. It was really one party that used different talking points to confuse the masses and provide the illusion of choice. Regardless of what politicians stated they believed in, they always supported more debt, more war, and a fiscal policy that is used to enslave the masses.

The second difficult pill I had to swallow was about our entire political system. If the entire system was a sham as I believed it to be, what good was voting? If Democrats and Republicans both supported the endless wars, ever increasing debt, and trampled civil liberties how could I ever vote for the “lesser of two evils” again?

In 2008 I voted for Bob Barr as the Libertarian candidate for President. In 2012 I voted for Gary Johnson as the Libertarian candidate for President. Up until 2012 I had never missed a vote in my entire life. After 2012 I vowed to never vote again as I no longer wish to contribute to evil.

When I started to express my views to my family I often compare it to coming out of the closet. I am a straight man and although I don’t know what it’s like to come out of the closet as it relates to sexuality, it echoed some of the same fears as I have heard gay people speak about.
I have had members of my family unfriend me on Facebook because of my views. Most of them though just think I’m right about the government being bad, but don’t agree with my proposed solutions. Most of them still have that indoctrination in their mind of “we got to support the troops” and “freedom isn’t free”. While I contend that the best support for the troops is honesty. If we stop perpetuating the lie that troops are fighting for freedom we remove the political cover the politicians need to send them to frivolous wars for corporate profit.

When it came to my interactions with people online I have been called a traitor, a bitch, someone who lacks internal fortitude. I have been told more times than I can count that I should “move to Somalia”. I have been threatened numerous times with physical violence. This has only occurred online because nobody has had the courage to threaten me to my face. I am a peaceful man but I am far from a pacifist.

I am an anarchist. As an anarchist I don’t even fit all that well into the what most people think an anarchist should be. I have heard my fellow anarchists say things about veterans that I would never agree to. The Kissinger quote that “Military men are stupid dumb animals” is often thrown around in my intellectual circles. I do not believe any of that. Military people are just like the rest of our society, mostly good people, some bad, and intelligence levels across the spectrum. Military people have bought into the same lies that 98% of our society has bought into.

I am not stupid. I am not an animal. As a matter of fact I am proud of who I am and what I have done in my life. I have built a successful career as an engineer. I have educated myself. I had the intellectual courage to swallow the hardest truths. I overcame years of indoctrination from a society that thrives on indoctrination. I overcame my own family history of military service and had the courage to be honest about the reasons my people were sent to war. I have grown as a man and my morals have evolved. I now know that military “service” is a poor decision at best. It’s a mistake I made and a mistake that I try to steer other folks away from.

I support Vacate the Military because I view the Federal Government as having breached the contract with the men and women of the military. If all of the reasons we go to war are lies, I don’t see how you could come to any other conclusion. The American people have money forcibly extorted from them and the future generations are enslaved to debt. Bankers and the Military Industrial Complex are the only victors in war. Veterans are left dead, maimed, and mentally scarred. They return home to politicians that wave the flag as false patriots while continuously voting to not take care of the people they sent to war. Some of our veterans have been completely abandoned in Vietnam to avoid political controversy.

When I was asked to be an admin of this page I knew that I would offer a unique perspective. I am not here to “hate on the military”, I am here to educate my fellow man and provide them with information that I did not have prior to joining the military. I do this out of love, not hate or disdain. I want to end these frivolous wars. I want to peel back the layers of the onion of indoctrination, to expose the truth. I want my brothers and sisters to live in peace.

I totally lost my interest in Dominoes and armchair warriors after Viet Nam. Our involvement in Asia was sold to the American people as a patriotic duty to defend our poor downtrodden yellow brothers who, under their yellow skin, were Americans yearning to breathe free (paraphrase from Full Metal Jacket). It was less than 20 years after WWII, so the ethos was easily sold to the veterans of the Big War. They proudly sent their sons to the slaughter orchestrated by the French and American interests of the military-industrial complex. To question our involvement as anything other than preventing the successive fall of southeast Asia’s countries to the Communist conspiracy was anathema. Well, at the end of the debacle, more than 58,00 young Americans and over a million Vietnamese had no more questions. Hundreds of thousands more with shattered minds and bodies continue to reap the benefits of that war. And the Band Plays On in Afghanistan, Iraq, and numerous venues to which that we, the people, are not made privy. God Bless America!

In this Christian nation, Veterans Day should be a day of mourning and national questioning of our lack of humanity. How do you think that’ll work out?

I “served” in the Navy (E-5, 1995-1999) and was blind to the horrors that governments perpetrate, during my young age. I have also come from a military “service” based family and was under the assumption that i was being patriotic and the nonsense that i was “protecting freedoms.”

Time went on and I learned more about politics and myself. I eventually became an (market) anarchist and have seen friends and family struggle when speaking with me about the ideas of a stateless society, living peacefully, and removing consent from the evil entity we call “government”. I also “came out” to my parents approximately 2.5 years ago, and it was tough for them. My Mom sent me a Veterans Day email today that thanked me for my “service” and I responded with a reminder email that she shouldn’t do that anymore. I don’t necessarily expect her to completely understand the path I’m on, but I would like her to respect my peaceful decision of myself removing any ties that bind me to government – time spent in the military included.

Keep fighting the good fight, brother. There are many out there that believe in (and follow) the N.A.P., and the journey is one that’s morally sound.

My family has been in America for over 200 years. My namesake was an officer in the Continental Army during America’s Revolutionary War. My father and I are both veterans. I believed there was a limited defensive role for the military in the USA. I realise now that government is a con, a criminal enterprise engaged in fraud, theft and violence.

Thoughtful article. I wonder how many Americans ever think about what it means to defend the country. I tend to view the role of the military in the original role espoused by the Founding Fathers. To them, defense meant to protect the land called the United States and its citizens from direct attack by invading armies. It did not mean attacking other countries because they beat up your govt friends (responding to the defense of others is a discussion best left to individuals voluntarily coming to the defense of others). It did not mean placing and enforcing embargoes on other nations that displease you (sometimes precipitating wars against your country in the process). It did not mean forcibly spreading your version of democracy to other nations. It did not mean attacking or otherwise interfering in the economic or political activities of other nations because they were competing successfully against you or against the US industries. In my view, the Revolutionary War was the last moral war this country fought in. Even WWI and WWII were wars entered into on false premises. Every war we fought in since then, especially the 20th and 21st century wars, were illegal wars.

We should be doing everything possible to educate people and espouse the proper use of defense, not using the military for offensive (vs truly defensive) and interventionist purposes.

Great article, Aaron. I also believe expressing a libertarian or anarchist view is similar to coming out of the closet, though I am also straight. I have also been insulted solely for my unpopular political views. I hope you keep writing on this website.

I am Agneta born and raised in Sweden. The Vietnam war waked me up.But it was the Young people
who came to my home in 1968 and asked me if I wanted to by the Vietnam Bulletin.Information in the Magazine really made me start to go out in the streets. The US was described in our media as the most wonderful country, why it was a big leap for me to start to question US policy. Ive been working for Peace since than. Now I am in the Board of Directors in Global Network Against Weapons and Nuclear Power in Space.See http://www.space4peace.org I am very afraid what will happen now when Sweden moves towards NATO membership.In Peace, Agneta Norberg, vice Chair Swedish Peace Council. http://www.frednu.se

Thank you Mr LaRue for a great article. I also went along a similar thought journey. Blind belief in the government to libertarianism and now thanks to notbeinggoverned.com, an anarchist (no ruler, just mutually beneficial rules).

Also I used to practise martial arts and to think that I shared those military values blindly without questioning.

I’m a former marine grunt too. I’m glad to see I’m not the only one who’s been able to get past the propaganda and see the truth. I haven’t found much luck trying to talk to the guys I served with about freedom. What have you found to be useful when reasoning with guys who are so immersed in the lies?